Why does my maroon clown shake his tail in the sand?

The last clown fish I had did the SAME thing. :frustrat:....He lives on a shelf rock that lays on the sand and he does this almost every time he is going into his cave. He puts his mouth on the rock and starts wiggling his tail as fast as he can. The tank immediately goes into a sand storm and it takes about an hour for it to clear up. The clown is 4" long so he makes quite a mess. Im thinking about putting a thin shelf rock on the sand where he does it to see if that fixes the problem. Anyone know why they do this? He is VERY healthy and shows no signs of ick.

My algae blenny does the same thing and it really pisses me off. He likes to sleep right near my acans and every time he digs the hole with his tail the acans get filled with sand. I have to blow the sand off 2x per day.

I had a maroon clown that did the same thing. they are just establishing their territory and protecting their interest. my clown did that everytime a person walked in to my room to look at the aquarium. don't expect it's behavior to change though. its just what they do. that's why i just gave mine away. they are pretty fun to watch, though. good luck

Mine do that when they are trying to make a spawning area. They fan the sand until they get a bare bottom. Then rearrange the tank to their liking and start spawning. If you give them a ceramic tile that is shiny they may stop fanning.

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